‘Did you notice what sort of train it was?’
She shakes her head. The branch of the Northern Line the train would take through the centre of town was irrelevant while they were staying south; neither of them looked when they ran on to the platform and threw themselves in through the doors. ‘How did we not notice him?’ she asks, but she knows why. Hossein has never seen Malik in his life, and she, stupid woman, has been gazing at Hossein.
‘It doesn’t matter. We know now.’
The train pulls in and he pokes his head out through the open door. ‘Western branch,’ he says. ‘We’ll stay on and get off at Waterloo.’
They ride in silence, hold tight to the hanging straps. Collette stares down the carriage, her back rigid as she imagines Malik’s eye boring into her shoulders. She hates the readers. Hates them for their absorption, their open body postures, their bags sitting casually on the seat beside them to reserve the space until the carriage fills up. Hates them for the fact that when they get off the train the worst that can happen is a quick and easy mugging.
Hossein’s eyes have narrowed, the pupils so wide they look flat and lustreless. He doesn’t look afraid, she thinks impatiently. He looks as calm as if this were some awkward social encounter. They pull in to Clapham South, stand aside to let the trickle of passengers on. A couple of backpacks, a tricycle buggy, an art portfolio. She takes the opportunity to turn casually and glance at the door between the carriages. No sign of Malik. Of course not. He’s waiting on the platform edge, in case they make a run for it.
The doors close and they move off. The rhythms of the London underground: shrill beeps, a brief flicker of the lights as they pass out of the station, something incomprehensible on the tannoy. The new passengers fan out and settle themselves into the corner seats. Everyone likes a corner seat, where only one person can crowd in next to them.
Clapham Common. A narrow platform between two tracks, nerve-wracking when two trains come in at once. A rush of Hipsters: woollen beanie hats in the height of summer, scraggy stubble, iPads, iPods, iPhones, old document bags that used to hang off newspaper sellers, now sold for fifty pounds in retro clothing stores. Checked shirts, biker boots, cotton dresses over leggings. Strap-hangers, hoping to burn off calories by tensing their abs.
Clapham North. The racial mix begins to change. London likes to think of itself as integrated in a way that American cities are not, but you can still tell the district you’re passing beneath by the skin tones that get on the trains. Now the carriage is half-and-half black and white, everyone tensing themselves for when the atmosphere gets harder at Stockwell. Stockwell, Oval, Kennington, Elephant: they’ve never recovered from their reputation for steaming gangs in the eighties. Houses there long since passed into the millions, but still the people passing beneath edge their bags closer in to their bodies as they leave Clapham, and check that their wallets are in their inside pockets.
I could do with a steaming gang right now, she thinks. A big row of scary teenagers piling through the carriage, causing chaos, making a pitch for Malik’s Rolex and distracting him as he takes them down.
They don’t come. The train pauses at Kennington and the carriage fills with commuters who tipped off the last train as it headed up towards Bank. She looks at Hossein and sees that he has moved towards the door, ready for the off. She stays where she is. Doesn’t want to alert their pursuer that they’re ready to move.
‘Brown line,’ says Hossein, and she nods. North, into the centre of town, where the crowds are. Easier to lose someone in a crowd, to dodge behind a placard, slip into a doorway.
The train pulls in, and they force their way off through a great whaling press of people, out-of-towners in from the country with no comprehension of the etiquette of mass transport, trying to push their way on before those on board have got off, a problem at all the mainline stations. Her bag catches on someone’s walking stick and they curse her as she wrenches herself free, catches a momentary glimpse of Malik, a head’s height above the crowd, but agile and charismatic enough that they part before him. I used to enjoy that, she thinks. I used to like the way I could use him as a battering ram in the club. How stupid am I? Then she’s away from the snag and hurrying in Hossein’s wake.
The crowd goes all the way back into the tunnel. They jostle their way forward, Collette fighting to breathe against the rising panic. If I shouted fire, she thinks, half these people would die in the stampede. They reach the escalator hall, hurry across grey, pitted tiles to the Bakerloo. A train is coming in and they step up their pace, run down the platform to a vacant space and throw themselves through the doors just as they close.